


Echoes

by maxiekat



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, I know nothing about endgame beyond guesses people are making online, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Endgame, potential spoilers but i doubt it, speculation fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 12:48:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17080613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maxiekat/pseuds/maxiekat
Summary: "Strange had called them echoes. The remnants of memories from a time they had lived and then, with a simple snap, unlived as time rewound on itself."   A short scene between Clint and Natasha inspired by the Endgame trailer.





	Echoes

Strange had called them echoes. The remnants of memories from a time they had lived and then, with a simple snap, unlived as time rewound on itself.

No matter how much Natasha tried to tell herself they weren’t real, they still haunted her. The memories. Both good and bad.  At once real but not real.

“They said it was years, Nat. Was it years?” Clint asked in a whisper as he watched his kids run around the yard, chasing the dog.   
  
“I don’t remember,” she lied. “Maybe?”

She wanted to shake Clint’s shoulders and tell him to just let it go. He’d lost everyone and she’d lost them, too – Laura and the kids. But they were his to lose, she’d just borrowed them for a while when she could. Stolen moments where the world boiled down to haphazard crayon drawings and weird Lego fortresses. Where things were simple and she could pretend nothing bad ever happened.

His grief before the world reset itself had been sharp enough to pierce through the haze in her mind.

Forgetting was a gift.

Remembering would drive him insane. 

She looked at Clint and saw a flash of him – hardened, angry, a body at his feet, steel in his hands, emptiness in his eyes.  Dust would have been kinder.

“So, we won?” he asked.  
  
Her heart squeezed as she smiled, a bittersweet ache in her chest as she remembered everything they’d lost. “That’s what they say.” 


End file.
